The other John Browne on Pickup Differences

@the other John Browne, one thing that would be very interesting to add is electrical measurements of the pickups. You can get a decent approximate RLC circuit representation of the pickup, along with info like resonant peak, bode plots, etc. This could help characterize how similar pickups are, and facilitate comparisons between build similarity and tone similarity. This forum has a lot of details, and a bunch of other obsessive nerds attempting to measure this stuff: https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/board/30/pickup-testing-modelling. There's academic literature out there too on the matter, a lot of which I think gets mentioned on the forum.

Myself, I'd be very interested in seeing further comparisons. Even if you didn't measure electrical parameters, you might be able to find some supposedly very different pickups by watching SD's massive pickup comparison video that Keith Merrow did, I remember hearing big differences there. I get that this stuff is a huge pain though... Maybe ask Relish Guitars to lend you one of one their guitars with the easy-swap pickup system like they did for Glenn?

Thanks for the video!
 
If I was that guy I'd be more concerned about how much severe vitamin and mineral deficiency matters
 
thegame said:
If I was that guy I'd be more concerned about how much severe vitamin and mineral deficiency matters
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Congrats on the new status.
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thegame said:
If I was that guy I'd be more concerned about how much severe vitamin and mineral deficiency matters
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^^
If i remember correctly, he has a autoimmune disease that causes this.
still funny!
sunlight wouldn't hurt (which you got partly covered with the Vitamin D).

He mentioned somwhere that someone called him "the pink torpedo" which he found funny, so i think he is cool with it
 
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I’ll say this . One day I took a $99 Epiphone with $5 and it made it sound super good just plugging it in into a vh4 and wizard and a noisegate . I spent a day doing that with a bunch guitars with great pick ups . Was there better pick ups that helped make it better yes . Idk it just made me think less of pick ups and more of the amps .
 
Techdeth said:
I’ll say this . One day I took a $99 Epiphone with $5 and it made it sound super good just plugging it in into a vh4 and wizard and a noisegate . I spent a day doing that with a bunch guitars with great pick ups . Was there better pick ups that helped make it better yes . Idk it just made me think less of pick ups and more of the amps .
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If you watch the Keith Merrow Duncan video, it seems that most of the pickups that he demonstrated could all sound very similar by just making minor tweaks to the tone controls on the amp.
 
Love John Browne. Does a lot of great research into things I wonder about but am too lazy to do myself.

The pickup shootout will always be hard because you have more variables than other types. Pickup height. Poles. Bridge Spacing. Playing consistently vs reamping.

Isolating just the impacting of bridge spacing on strings (ie F spacing in a Gibson vs the same pickup in 50mm in the same guitar) for a pickup would be a good video on its own.
 
chumbucket said:
If you watch the Keith Merrow Duncan video, it seems that most of the pickups that he demonstrated could all sound very similar by just making minor tweaks to the tone controls on the amp.
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I def can see that . I mean just the me a basic JB I’m good. Though I do have high end pick ups too for things
 
i did a EMG bridge PU swap with a trem guitar making a clip of each PU.
I could swap the pickups out while doing a dive bomb. just 2 screws on the PU ring. it was like 1-2 minutes between takes.
It was the AHB-3n, 81, 85 and 60x. They all sounded and felt clearly different in the room with the amp. I mic'd it with a e609 direct into a low budget audio IF. i could hear a minimal to no difference on the recordings but would fail in a blind test. the EMG60 didn't distort as much and was a bit brighter with the least bass. the AHB-3n being the loudest and the EMG 85 was a bit beafier than the 81. but at one point i thought i made an error exporting them and they are all the same (there not).

my findings with PUs so far are, all depending on the guitar, it could be from "doesn't matter" or "make or break" a sound.
Because i had PU/guitar combos that sounded horrible. usually this happens, if it gets too fat and the attack is not clear enough for me.
 
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MetalGOD84 said:
I'll say this... PAFs sound better with high gain amps than active pick-ups.
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See I have both and I would like them for different things.

I think PAFs sound better for chords/rhythm that isn't just one-note-per-string stuff, but actives (by this I mean EMGs) sound better for one-note-per-string stuff and leads
 
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